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FREE App: Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck

Today’s review is from Susan Stephenson.  I knew Susan via her blog The Book Chook.   If you are looking for children’s books, try Book Chook.  You can usually find something interesting.  Today Susan is going to share a free app with us.  Let’s see what she is sharing with us –

If you’re looking for an app that encourages kids to think creatively, can I suggest you check out Haiku Deck? It’s an app the whole family can use, but it’s also appropriate for kids in elementary school. The Haiku Deck app encourages users to create a story and set it free. That story takes the form of images accompanied by captions, meaning that children don’t need to do lots of writing. They do however need to think about communicating a message to an audience and how they will go about it. Great practice for school! 

Haiku Deck is well-designed with loads of features I appreciate. At first opening, you see a sample slide deck that you can customize to make your own. The template theme is already there for you on each slide. The default text has handy hints – all you need do is to replace the default text with your own. This is an excellent, non-threatening way for a user to learn their way around any app and I commend the developers for it. Younger kids might need guidance and parents could work through Haiku Deck’s online tutorial to help them. Haiku Deck Free App

Images can come from within the app. Kids don’t have to struggle with image licenses – all the images available are Creative Commons licensed meaning children can get on with the process of creating without plagiarizing. When a user puts in a keyword, Haiku Deck brings up images of excellent quality. The images themselves may suggest a story to a young creator. Or a child may prefer to use images from the camera roll. I love this alternative as it encourages even more creativity. It’s also a perfect choice if a child knows exactly what he wants to say and how he will say it. 

The fact we can use the camera roll with Haiku Deck means it can be combined with other apps. Kids may create the specific pictures they want in a drawing app, or use the iPAD built-in camera to take photographs. Class excursions would be a great time to collect images for later use in Haiku Deck. Children could also use a comic editor to create individual frames and then join those frames into a complete story with Haiku Deck.

Haiku Deck is a wonderful way to create poetry because you mustn’t waste words in your deck. Also, because text is limited, Haiku Deck makes an excellent app for simple presentations. 

The Haiku Deck developers have been generous. The free version of the app has 6 free themes. After this, you need to pay per extra theme or $15.99 for the lot. They’ve also been generous with sharing options:  email a deck, convert to a powerpoint, share via social media, make your deck public or private by choosing settings, or get an embed code to put on a website. With public decks, you get a link to their place in the Haiku Deck gallery which people can see without an iPad. 

I love apps that encourage kids to think creatively. Why not give Haiku Deck a try with your kids? 

Haiku Deck works on iPAD.  It is FREE on App Store, with options to buy more themes via In-App Purchase.
 
If you would like to check it out or purchase it, please use the App Store link provided below. The cost is the same to you, but iGameMom gets a small percentage. Thanks for your support! Note: The link works for all countries.
Haiku Deck Free App

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Susan StephensonSusan Stephenson believes children engage more in their own learning when they enjoy themselves. Her 25 years as a teacher in Australia encouraged her to put that belief into practice – in the classroom and the blogs.

{ 4 comments… add one }
  • This looks like a great app for adults and children. My daughter’s K-8 school had annual speech competitions and presentations required for each grade. I can see using this to prepare for those too.

    Writing, wrote, written
    Visual learning toolkit
    A free Haiku Deck!

    • wow, thanks for the wonderful writing! You should definitely try the app.

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